The sun set over Richmond and rose over the Andes

I´m now safely sitting in my hostel en LA PLATA! there´s no wireless internet access here but there are comps that you can use for 30 minutes so I´ll write more about the rest of the trip later... but for now here is the email I wrote to my family in the Santiago airport. The travel complications ended up being a blessing because I had the most BEAUTIFUL window seat flying over the Andes mountains this afternoon. I couldn´t have asked for a more pleasant plane ride with clear skies and a great view. I´ll update more later
Hope that everything is going well with you guys! It has been a marathon of a day so far, but everything is going really well. As i write this I'm sitting in the airport in Santiago, Chile. Everything is so cheap here...I'm already tempted to buy earrings for $5 (we're in an airport...so they take US bucks for everything which is convenient). And I'm looking at a sign for fully dressed hamburgers for $3 a piece! Well it's 9am here...but I'm so discombobulated, I think it's 7am american time but the sun is shining brightly over the Andes so it's hard to tell. The flight from Richmond to Atlanta was a little delayed because there were alot of last minute add ons so they said we were running about 20 minutes late which made me a little nervous since our connection from atlanta to Santiago was pretty rushed. ALSO you know how I was wondering if there had ever been a dead body on one of my flights? Well there was, on this one. There was a military leader escorting the corpse home :-( SAD JOB.
But we ended up making it to Atlanta with literally JUST enough time to find our exit, go to the bathroom then board the plane. The plane was HUGE but I actually had an aisle seat which was crucial because I spent sooooo much time in that seat. I sat next to a cute 26 year old (megan and doug...legitimately a more exotic Zack Jackson...) who started speaking to me in fluent spanish. I was taken aback a litle bit and told him that I was "estadounidense" and apologized for my bad spanish. He then apologized and said he thought that I was Chilena because of my style (pumas, jeans, bracelets and crazy nail polish?) But anyway, he was really cool to talk to and we ended up speaking in some spanish and some english. It was really cool because I feel like our levels of speaking were pretty comparable. Airplane food- chicken and potatoes with a mini salad, a piece of cheese and crackers, and a piece of bread. I was so hungry (this was around 9pm our time that dinner was served) that I ate most of it but regret it heavily when I started having stomache cramps throughout the flight. OH WELL, you live and learn... They also had complimentary beer and wine which I didn't feel like but it would have probably helped me fall asleep. And when I say I didn't feel like it, I mean that I thought they would card me but the girls in front of me were like 16 and they got huge cups of wine without being carded so I'm sure it would have been fine. But it's probably good I declined because I drank so much water and still feel dehydrated. I managed to get a couple hours of sleep and watched a couple of movies on and off. Anyways, it was REALLY cool to see the sun set over Virginia and see it rise again over the backdrop of the andes mountains. Our flight leaves here at 11:25, then we'll be in B.A. at around 1:20 and eventually La Plata!
It's already been an adventure. I'm about to go buy a bottled water and browse the cheap jewelry.
<3 Love and miss you all already